Indian Palaeography from about B.C. 350 to about A.D. 1300 c9.s3.t2.7

c9.s3.t2.7

The second system to be considered,² which is still used in Ceylon, Siam and Burma for the pagination of MSS., and according to BURNELL formerly also [83] occurred in Southern India, utilises the Brahmanical *Bārākhaḍī* (see page 2 above). According to BURNELL, the Akṣaras *ka* to *ḷa* are equivalent to 1 to 34; *kā* to *ḷā* = 35 to 68; *ki* to *ḷi* = 69 to 102; and so on. But in the Pali MSS. of the Viennese Court Library from Burma, I find *ka* to *kaḥ* = 1 to 12; *kha* to *khaḥ* = 13 to 24; and so on: and in those from Ceylon, where the *Bārākhaḍī* includes the vowels *ṛ*, *ṝ*, *ḷ*, and *ḹ*, *ka* to *kaḥ* = 1 to 16, and *kha* to *khaḥ* = 17 to 32, whereby a somewhat different employment of the Akṣaras results.³ FAUSBÖLL has kindly informed me that the last two methods alone (not that mentioned by BURNELL) are used in the Pali MSS. known to him. And he adds that, after the exhaustion of the whole *Bārākhaḍī*, the Ceylonese MSS. begin again with 2 *ka*, 2 *kā*, and so on, and further that the pagination of Siamese MSS. agrees exactly with those from Burma.